‘I will.’
‘Okay. Oh, wait, just a sec.’
There was another rustle. I waited a few seconds, then I heard Anne’s soft voice. ‘Hello?’
‘Hey, you,’ I said. ‘Did they treat you okay?’
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ Anne said. ‘At least they listened.’
‘Going to the party?’
‘I don’t think that’d be a good idea.’
‘You don’t have to let them shut you out all the time,’ I said. ‘I know the Light mages don’t trust you, but…’
‘Isn’t the idea for Vari and Luna to make a good impression?’ Anne said. ‘I don’t think having me around would help.’
I sighed. She was probably right. Anne is one of the few mages I know that the Council trusts even less than me. ‘What about you?’ Anne asked.
‘What? Oh. Still waiting on Talisid. I need to be there if he calls.’
Anne hesitated. ‘I could come over.’
‘Eh,’ I said. ‘It’s okay. You look after yourself.’
‘Will you be okay on your own? Luna told me about last night…’
‘I’m used to it. Safe trip back.’
‘You stay safe too.’
With Anne’s, Variam’s and Luna’s problems settled for the moment, I was at a loose end. I still needed to prepare some escape routes just in case worst came to worst, but looking into the future in which I sat at home and did nothing, I could tell that the chances of Talisid calling were a possibility but not a certainty. Which was pretty much the worst possible result from an informational point of view. If Talisid wasn’t going to get in touch, I could leave the house and spend the evening shopping for gate stones. If he was going to get in touch, I could narrow down the time he’d do it and get other stuff done before and after. But with the futures uncertain, I just had to sit around and wait. It’s like that annoying situation where you’re getting a package delivered, but you don’t know when, and you can’t leave the house in case the guy shows up while you’re out. Or at least it would be, if postal delivery companies were in the habit of sending you mail telling you how long you’ve got to live. With nothing else to do, I waited.
I’ve never liked waiting. It would probably surprise most people – from an outside perspective, waiting is something I do a lot. But there’s a difference between waiting for something you’re in control of, and waiting for something you’re not. There was absolutely nothing I could do to influence Talisid’s actions or the decisions of the people he spoke to. If he rang me up and told me that it was a no-go, that the votes weren’t getting changed, then that was it. I had no illusions that I could stand up to the Keepers if they seriously decided to hunt me down. I’d have to flee the country or die.
I found myself wishing that I’d taken Anne up on her offer. It was selfish – there wouldn’t have been anything for her to do except sit around, and she probably had more important things to do with her time. Still, it would make me feel better.
I looked into the future yet again to see if I could catch some snatches of conversation from the possibilities where Talisid called me, and couldn’t see any. Someone else was going to show up before I could wait long enough for there to be a realistic chance of Talisid calling. I looked towards the door and waited until I heard a rustle of movement. ‘I know you’re there, Hermes.’
A black nose poked around the edge of the door, followed by a vulpine muzzle. Hermes walked into the room with a leisurely sort of air. ‘You know, one of these days I’m going to have to figure out how you keep getting in,’ I said. ‘If you’re blinking to the spot in the storeroom, how are you getting through a locked door?’
Hermes gave me a quizzical look.
‘It’s not that I mind you showing up. Though you might be safer giving me a wider berth for a while.’
Hermes sat back on his hind legs.
I shook my head. ‘Why do you stick around? I know we feed you, but it’s not like you need it. And you help out with things like last night. It’s not as though you owe me anything. I do appreciate it, but … why?’
Hermes tilted his head, then got up, walked to the kitchen and looked back.
I looked at Hermes curiously. ‘You want me to follow?’
He blinked at me.
I followed Hermes through the kitchen and to the door leading out to the balcony. He sat and looked up at the handle. I got my coat, then opened the door and stepped out into the winter night.
Hermes blinked out of existence, vanishing from sight. From the flicker of space magic, I knew he’d teleported on to the top of the building. I climbed up the ladder to find him sitting on the edge of the roof, looking out over the city. I walked up next to the fox and followed his gaze.
I love the view from the top of my flat. The streets around my part of Camden are densely packed enough that standing this high, you can barely see any ground. Instead you see rooftops: peaked roofs, tiled roofs and the flat rectangles of the apartment blocks, their ventilators puffing smoke into the cold sky. All around, a forest of aerials and chimneys rise up, built ten or twenty or fifty years ago by nameless craftsmen and abandoned to the air. Ever since I was young, rooftops always felt like a secret world to me, parallel to the city and yet apart from it, forgotten by all but a few. When I’d been deciding whether to take over this shop, whether to move in, I think it was this view that convinced me. It wasn’t until after I’d climbed up to this spot that I did it.
I realised suddenly that I loved it here. Not just this place, but everything it represented: my shop, the city, the people around it. At some point, the shop and the flat above it had become something more than the place where I lived. It had become my home, and I’d stayed here and weathered all the storms that had come to pass. Standing up on the roof, I could see the section that had been replaced two years before, when the Nightstalkers had blasted through with an explosive charge. I’d survived, and fought, and won, and had the roof rebuilt and reinforced with steel. But none of that would protect me from the Council if they turned against me.
Could I bear to just run away? Uproot myself, flee to another country, leave behind everyone and everything I cared for? All of a sudden I wasn’t so sure. Catch a wild animal, take it to a new climate and environment and let it go, and most of the time it doesn’t survive.
I didn’t want to leave. But would I have a choice?
I stayed up there in the darkness, growing colder and colder, watching the lights of the city flicker and change and listening to the cars and trains rumble by. Finally when I began to shiver I turned and went back down. Hermes followed me. Once he was back inside my flat, he jumped up on to the armchair, curled up and went to sleep.
I stayed up waiting for Talisid until the last possible futures of him calling that night had thinned away to nothing. At last, I went to bed. I slept poorly, and started awake several times, searching the futures for danger, but the night was silent and empty.
4
Morning. Five days until my sentence went through.
The chime of the communicator pulled me out of a confusing dream, and I stumbled to my feet and pulled on my trousers, still half asleep. I splashed water on my face, dragged a comb through my hair and took a few seconds to run through the most probable paths the conversation could go. It was going to be good news and bad. Once I was as alert as I was going to get, I activated the focus.
Talisid’s image materialised on the coffee table. ‘Verus,’ Talisid said. ‘Are you in London?’